He and I both know what that’s like.
We’ve lived through it too—he as the addict and me as the kid who just wanted his father to be sober.
My dad’s one of the lucky ones.
He made it out.
Nine years and counting.
Macey’s daddy hasn’t escaped his hell. Not yet.
“Take tomorrow off, too,” my dad says.
I jerk my head up. His eyes are on Macey, and they’re…soft. For Roy Wild, the man who won’t listen to a word I say when I tell him I want to paint and not run the ranch, this is a moment. A moment I have no fucking clue what to do with.
“Take care of her.” His voice is gruffer than usual.
He nods at me, and then he’s gone.
I watch him disappear around the corner of the ICU. And I decide that, for tonight, I’m going to do just that.
18
Macey
* * *
“Mace.”
At the gentle shaking of my shoulder, I open my eyes. I’m staring at the same thing I was looking at when I finally closed my eyes—the white walls and bright lights of the hospital waiting room. The antiseptic smell is in my nostrils, and I sneeze as I sit up straight.
Logan’s arm tightens around my waist, and I turn and look at him. Tousled dark hair, whiskey eyes fixed on me like nothing else could ever interest him as much—I’m a lucky girl.
I don’t mean to say those last four words out loud.
But I’m exhausted, defenseless, and what’s in my head comes right out of my careless mouth.
Logan’s eyes crinkle at the corners, but he doesn’t tease me like he normally would.
Instead, he tells me Daddy’s still stable, Mama and my siblings are home and asleep, and that we should do the same.
“You want to be strong for tomorrow,” he says.
He doesn’t say the words for the intervention. He doesn’t have to.
I don’t tell him about the conversation I had with the town mayor over my cell phone as I paced the hospital halls. How he adamantly insisted that this was the last straw, how he’s “given your daddy endless chances, and every time, Macey, I swear, every darn time, he makes me regret it.” I especially don’t tell Logan how the only way I could get him to agree to let The Cowherd continue to serve liquor was by telling him I’d run the bar. And not just temporarily this time but for good. Forever.
I swallow down a scream as I process the reality of what this deal with the mayor means. It’s a decision that all but promises that my dream to break free of the family bar, to become a writer and follow my own path, is over for good.
I follow Logan numbly out of the ICU waiting room, down the long hallway, and into the elevators. We exit the hospital lobby, and Logan puts his hand on the small of my back as we make our way through the parking lot to his truck.
We stop at a twenty-four-hour burger joint and fill up on hamburgers, fries, and milkshakes.
And then, we drive. With the windows down and the gas pedal pushed to straining, we fly down the empty country roads.
I let the hot wind dry the few tears that surprise me enough to leave my eyes, and I silently pray.
I pray for my father and the sickness that controls him. I pray for my mama and my siblings. I even pray for The Cowherd, the place that’s always both plagued and anchored our family.
